Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime -- Tank Battles?!

I have rescued fifty-four out of the one-hundred kidnapped slimes in Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. So I'm roughly just over halfway through the game. The player controls a slime named Rocket who bounces around. Rocket's main attack is called an elasto blast. Essentially Rocket is able to stretch himself in one of eight directions and then rocket himself forward for a bit. Blasting into most enemies three or four times is enough to defeat them. But the elasto blast has other features. When blasting into enemies and items you'll launch them into the air. If Rocket positions himself under said enemies or items he'll be able to catch them and carry them around. He can carry up to three items at a time, all stacked on his head. Pressing the R button will cycle through them as you're able to throw and use the bottom item in the stack. Rocket also has a jump and a hover ability. The bulk of the gameplay is in the adventure mode where you'll also do all the exploring. The other half of combat, the tank battles are in their own specific sections. You'll actually blow on a flute and start a tank battle. The tank battles are really quite fun. The tanks themselves are massive. With multiple floors and the like. The battles are a great blend of action and strategy. On the top screen you'll see two tanks facing off against each other. Each tank has two cannons. The top shooting in an arching trajectory and bottom shooting straight across. On the top screen you'll see the various ammo types being shot. If whatever you've shot hits a projectile from the other tank both projectiles are destroyed. The object is to insure your projectile finds its target. You do this by firing your ammo from the bottom screen. You'll run around the inside of your tank grabbing different ammo types to load into your cannons. You can have up to three other crew members inside your tank helping you. There are numerous allies from which to fill out your tank crew. Each one with their own action or strategy. You can have someone just firing from the bottom cannon. Or someone who is slower but will carry three projectiles at once to load into either cannon. You can fire over someone to infiltrate the other tank and attack the crew loading the cannons there, assuming you can get them into the tank with a clear shot. You'll also have to deal with the enemy trying to infiltrate your tank. Once you've taken atank's hit points down to zero you actually have to raid the other tank and physically destroy its engine. The tank battles are brilliant fun.  There is another aspect to the game and that's alchemy. You'll be using the alchemy pot to create better  weapons and armor for your tank. Pretty much every item in the game can be used to make something for your tank. All through the game there are railways leading back to the town. You need to gather items and even enemies and load them up on the cars to have them taken back to town for you where they can be used. You even use the railways to get the slimes you've rescued back to town. The game restricts your access to certain areas by having various spiked balls of differing weights blocking your path. They're all numbered, and the number refers to how many slimes it will take to lift and move the spiked ball out of your way. You can get more slimes by rescuing them of course. They're all trapped in treasure chests stashed all over the world. Mostly out in the open, but a few of them are hidden in tricky spots. There isn't a lot of plot going on. It's really just about exploring and collecting items for alchemy to use in and better your tank while rescuing the slimes. What's there is definitely in the for kids category. But it's very well done and quite fun.